Mitchel Resnick

Marina Umaschi Bers

ScratchJr is a free, introductory computer programming language that runs on iPads and Android tablets. Inspired by Scratch, the wildly popular programming language used by millions of children worldwide, ScratchJr helps even younger kids create their own playful animations, interactive stories, and dynamic games. The Official ScratchJr Book is the perfect companion to this free app and makes coding easy and fun for all. Kids learn to program by connecting blocks of code to make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. Each chapter includes several activities that build on one another, culminating in a fun final project. These hands-on activities help kids develop computational-thinking, problem-solving, and design skills. In each activity, you’ll find: *Step-by-step, easy-to-follow directions *Ways to connect the activity with literacy and math concepts *Tips for grown-ups and teachers *Creative challenges to take the learning further By the end of the book, kids will be ready for all sorts of new programming adventures!

Help Your Kids Learn to Code

The Official ScratchJr Book

Why children should be taught coding not as a technical skill but as a new literacy—a way to express themselves and engage with the world. Today, schools are introducing STEM education and robotics to children in ever-lower grades. In Beyond Coding, Marina Umaschi Bers lays out a pedagogical roadmap for teaching code that encompasses the cultivation of character along with technical knowledge and skills. Presenting code as a universal language, she shows how children discover new ways of thinking, relating, and behaving through creative coding activities. Today’s children will undoubtedly have the technical knowledge to change the world. But cultivating strength of character, socioeconomic maturity, and a moral compass alongside that knowledge, says Bers, is crucial. Bers, a leading proponent of teaching computational thinking and coding as early as preschool and kindergarten, presents examples of children and teachers using the Scratch Jr. and Kibo robotics platforms to make explicit some of the positive values implicit in the process of learning computer science. If we are to do right by our children, our approach to coding must incorporate the elements of a moral education: the use of narrative to explore identity and values, the development of logical thinking to think critically and solve technical and ethical problems, and experiences in the community to enable personal relationships. Through learning the language of programming, says Bers, it is possible for diverse cultural and religious groups to find points of connection, put assumptions and stereotypes behind them, and work together toward a common goal.

How Children Learn Human Values through Programming

Beyond Coding

Contains examples of how robotics can be used in grades K through 2 as a hands-on tool for helping children learn about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Learning with Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom

Blocks to Robots

Based on over a decade and a half of research, this title aims to guide readers in the design of digital technologies to promote positive behaviours in children and teenagers.

From Playpen to Playground

Designing Digital Experiences for Positive Youth Development

Glenda Revelle

ACM SIGCHI Interaction Design and Children : Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA, June 21-24, 2015

IDC 2015

Coding as a Playground, Second Edition focuses on how young children (aged 7 and under) can engage in computational thinking and be taught to become computer programmers, a process that can increase both their cognitive and social-emotional skills. Learn how coding can engage children as producers—and not merely consumers—of technology in a playful way. You will come away from this groundbreaking work with an understanding of how coding promotes developmentally appropriate experiences such as problem-solving, imagination, cognitive challenges, social interactions, motor skills development, emotional exploration, and making different choices. Featuring all-new case studies, vignettes, and projects, as well as an expanded focus on teaching coding as a new literacy, this second edition helps you learn how to integrate coding into different curricular areas to promote literacy, math, science, engineering, and the arts through a project-based approach and a positive attitude to learning.

Marina Umaschi Bers

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